Asian Movie Reviews

Bayside Shakedown The Final (2012)

An international environmental energy summit is being held at Odaiba’s Tokyo Big Sight and the officers of Wangan Police Station are mobilised to handle security for the event. During the event a man is kidnapped and his body is found hours later having been shot dead. The weapon used in the killing is a gun that the police had seized. A special investigation unit is flown into Wangan to handle the murder inquiry. In the meantime another murder takes place and pressure begins to mount to arrest the culprit. Aoshima is put under suspicion by the investigation team and forced to hand over his badge and gun. Even Aoshima’s friend and one of the top dogs in Tokyo’s police force Muroi Shinji is put under heavy pressure. During all of this chaos, a third incident occurs in which Wangan’s Police Chief Masayoshi’s daughter is kidnapped. Aoshima even though he is suspended from duty feels obliged to find the child. Will this be his final case for the police? Meanwhile Aoshima’s trusted partner Sumire has handed in her resignation to her superiors. An injury flaring from an incident whilst on-duty (she was shot in the shoulder) has meant she cannot fulfill her duties properly and she feels she is letting the side down. She has not told any of her colleagues in her department yet but is quietly packing her stuff from her desk and is waiting for the right opportunity to leave before anybody realises she is gone. How will Aoshima react when he realises that Sumire is gone?

Watching this movie down at Odaiba’s Cinema Mediage on Friday 7th December had a very special significance for me as just as I was settling down in my seat a powerful 7.3 earthquake occurred during Tokyo’s evening rush hour which made my seat rock quite a lot. No evacuation took place at the cinema and in fact none of the cinema staff even came to see if we were OK. Even one of the cinema punters behind me when he said there was an earthquake happening didn’t have a hint of panic in his voice. Tokyoites have become so used to the earth moving beneath their feet. It did come to my mind as the quake intensified whether it could be the big one that the city have been expecting for some time. After a minute the shaking stopped but I did feel 2 strong aftershocks during the movie. But enough about that, let’s get on with the review.

The final ever Bayside Shakedown pulls out all the stops to make sure the franchise finishes on a high. The beginning of the movie blurs the boundary of whether we are seeing the Wangan police officers in the future and having retired from the force as we witness Aoshima, Sumire and their close team running a food stall but we are soon shown the whole picture and that it’s all a part of an operation to capture a suspect. I know many fans like myself would have liked to see Aoshima and Sumire start a relationship and settle down together and this scenario gives the illusion that they’re married. A shame it wasn’t real. The main plot makes it seem like there’s a grand conspiracy to disgrace Aoshima and make him resign from his job. Yes, it’s the superiors high up in the police interfering once more in matters that doesn’t really concern them. Instead of letting the local officers deal with things, they have to fly in a specialist team to take over the Wangan precinct and bellow orders out to everybody. There’s also a hint that somebody with links to the specialist team is trying to frame Aoshima. On one hand the plot has Aoshima trying to solve 2 cases of murder and a kidnapping of a child and on the other there’s the small matter of Sumire quitting her job due to injury. Sumire isn’t involved that much in the movie, she appears here and there throughout quietly packing away her belongings, not giving an inkling away to Aoshima that she’s leaving and buying a boxful of noodles for the team as a goodbye present. I’m glad to say she does have a big part in the climax though it is ridiculously far fetched and it involves a bus! There’s a great deal of good humoured comedy in the movie. The biggest being that a rather large crate of beer that has been ordered by mistake has landed at the precinct and Aoshima’s team do their best to make the consigment not look quite so conspicious. They tape it up with whatever they find close by including bits of white tarp but the pallet on which the beer cans have been placed are near some stairs that the bosses use regularly and they are constantly asking what’s underneath the tarp. The team start making up an elaborate excuse to cover their backs but the ruse is finally discovered when some of the beer cans explode! The mix of drama and comedy is one of the things that have made Bayside Shakedown such a joy to watch over the years. You’ve got plenty of suspense to keep you on the edge of your seat but also humour to make you chuckle.

Yuji Oda in my eyes is Shunsaku Aoshima. Even when he’ll be old and looking back at his career, it is probably the role of Aoshima as an actor he’ll be best remembered for. He and Eri Fukatsu as Sumire have got some great chemistry together and the will they won’t they relationship probably have had some fans screaming at the fact that they haven’t taken up the courage to ask each other out. They obviously like each other very much but it’s like neither is willing to take the relationship up to another level. I really did think that because this was the final movie that we would see the two of them together but it was not to be.

I do feel a bit sad in knowing that this could well be the final ever Bayside Shakedown movie. For 15 years it has captured the imagination of the Japanese public who have grown up with the characters and obviously care a lot for them. I take it the people behind the drama has decided it’s time for Detective Shunsaku Aoshima to hang up his trusted green jacket. It’s certainly a great movie to finish everything off with a dramatic story, funny comedy and some wonderful acting from the entire cast. The middle section of the movie tended to sag a little bit but overall it was excellent. There’s even a montage of still photos from the drama series up to this movie over the end credits to bring some nostalgia for the viewers. I will miss Bayside Shakedown but I’ll be able to watch the drama series, specials and the movies to remind myself over the years just how good it was. Thank you Aoshima, Sumire and the Wangan police officers, it’s been a pleasure watching you.

Sadako’s Rating: 4 stars out of 5

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One Response

Great review. Most fans of Japanese pop-culture will know this series and was interested in seeing how this one plays out. The story about that chap calmly telling you about the earthquake made me smile. That said, I would prefer another film to panic along to.